Thesis advisor: Natana DeLong-Bas / Throughout history, the idea of “hidden wisdom” and “primordial truth” has been a perennial fixture of innovative or heterodox beliefs. Repeatedly, novel methods of thought, be they religious, political, or social, have been introduced as a product of a vaunted time and space: lost secrets of the Persian magi, rediscovered wisdom of Solomon, uncovered Egyptian mysteries, etc. This persistent trope begs examination, and highlights one of the oldest trends in human thought: to find legitimacy in tradition, imagined or otherwise. Furthermore, the literature seems to always point towards a land in the greater Middle East as the font of wisdom - even in the writings of people from the Middle East, who simply attribute works to peoples and lands different from their own. Finally, in more modern times, there is a tendency to lean upon the narrative of a lost past for purposes of cultivating a new national identity, especially by peoples grappling with the overbearing mantle of Arabness or the struggles of a stateless people. Overall, the lost golden ages of the Middle East serve as the ideal wellspring of legitimacy for unorthodox ideas regarding the divine, the state, and the nature of a people. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Middle Eastern Studies.

The author covers issues of gender and Iranian national identity as reflected in Iran’s first published woman novelist, Simin Daneshvar. Her novel, Savushun, is the first novel to be published by an Iranianwoman in 1969. The novel depicts Iran at the start of the country’s governmental factions in 1941 when Reza Shah Pahlavi overthrew years of Iranian dynasty and established a monarchy. This thesis explores how the novel is a vital part of Iran’s historical literature as well as essential to the present day discussion of gender and politics, especially for women within the patriarchal paradigm.